| Chapter 1: | The Family |
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common language, no common culture, and many South Italians considered themselves conquered by the armies and politicians of the northern regions. It appeared to the South Italians that the Mezzogiorno, the Italian South, had become a colony of the North Italians. The old Bourbon rulers had been replaced by the Piedmontese and the Lombards. Giovanni Verga makes Sicilian poverty the subject of many of his short stories. In “Nedda” published in 1874 Verga tells the tragic story of a young woman who works for low wages in the olive groves and elsewhere to support herself and her dying mother. She fell in love with Janu but he died before they could get married. Her infant daughter dies and Nedda thanks the Virgin Mary for taking her from the earth “so that she wouldn’t have to suffer like me.”4 In Verga’s “Rosso Malpelo,” appearing in 1878, a young man works like a beast of burden in a quarry and dies there. The young man rarely saw the sky.5
Alfio and Rosalia had a son, Charles, who died from meningitis when he was only a year and a half, and a daughter, Rosalie. She was born on October 12, 1911. Marianna loved Rosalie and spoiled her. She bought her many dresses until Rosalia complained. Alfio spoiled her, too. On Sundays he took her to South Beach and Coney Island where they enjoyed eating clam chowder. My grandmother worked in a nearby shirt factory in those early years and devoted little time to her daughter. Rosalia was a pretty young woman and a photographer took a picture of her working at her sewing machine. The other women were upset since the photographer didn’t take pictures of them. Rosalie started elementary